Photos from Epi Part 2

Good Morning,

It's Saturday morning in Port Villa and although I have long list of little tasks and chores to take care of before going back to Epi, I want to take advantage of this brief window of internet availability to post some more picture.

It's hard to tell, but we are standing on the side of a steep hill in the picture. After chopping down the tree, the first step in building a canoe is to carve away the sides as my papa is doing here. My papa, my uncles, and I worked on this canoe for a whole day before carrying it back to the village to dry.

More canoe building

Here's the view from the side of the hill where we were working on the canoe. The flatter tree-less area at the bottom is now cleared and I've planted corn, cabbage, carrots, and tomatoes there.

Sometime after lunch (roasted bananas in the bush), the rains started to come from across the valley. Unfortunately, they didn't show up in this picture, but a swarm of bats was flocking at the top of the hill in this photo.

Here we are in the rainy season of Vanuatu. If you're high enough, you can see it coming, but usually you don't get much warning and then everything is soaked.

When it rains, you can hide under the eaves of a tree like I am or you can ignore it and keep working.

Uncle Alek (not Alak) takes a turn cutting out the inside of the canoe with an axe.

More carving. I helped a little, but this was early enough in my stay on Epi, that they still thought I was too fragile for much physical labor. That's changed whether I like it or not and I am no longer given a five year old to accompany me if I head out to the bush.

Papa's land is inland from Rovo Bay. There's an area before reaching my garden that looks like a well maintained park. Papa ties his cattle to the coconut trees and the cattle eat all the grass within about 10 meters of the tree until Papa comes and ties them to another one. So, the area always looks like someone mowed it a few weeks ago.

Another view of the cleared coconut park where my family ties up their cattle.

Here is my host papa Daniel with his two daughters Melanie and Josephine under the obligatory mango tree next to my house. We've been looking over my little world globe. This little area between my house, my parent's house, and Robinson and Seesie's house is like our living room. There are a few benches and when not planting yams, or playing Rambo in the jungle, this is where you'll find my family.

Melanie will be starting seventh grade this week and Josephine will be starting grade six. Both were are the top of their classes in December.

On the other side of the little clearing is Robinson and Seesie's kitchen (on the right). Papa Robinson, posed here, is an agricultural officer for Shefa Province and somehow part of our family. He's one of the more educated people in Alak and his Bislama is peppered with words like "how" instead of "olsem wannem" and "bench" instead of "ples wea yumi save sidaon".

Like most of the women, Mama Seesie never seems to stop working. Once everyone is fed, the garden is taken care of, the kids of allright, the church is clean, and the cows have been moved to new grass, it's mat making time.

Papa Robinson on the left and Morris on the right. This is one of the few times Morris is wearing a shirt so it must be Saturday morning before church. Sometimes called "Morris Australia", he wasn't able to attend school as a child due to what I think was a heart condition that required a lengthy stay in Australia for medical attention. He's continually amazed when I work in the garden, prepare manioc, or clean a fish.

More mat making in front of Seesie and Robinson's house.

Thanks for visiting and I'll try to post more pictures when I can

Photos from Epi

I've managed to load some photos. I'll try to organize them and add captions tomorrow.

Good night,

Daniel

Photos from Epi: Captions

Good Morning,

It's 7:30am on Super Bowl Monday here in Port Vila. There was a burst of sudden internet connectivity last night that allowed me to post so many pictures, but it appears to have left me. So, there won't be any new pictures this morning, but I can explain the others. There's a way to add these captions to the original post directly, but its all but impossible without the page timing out. Frankly, I'm thinking it a small miracle that I can post anything. Years of working with a computer doesn't do one much good in Vanuatu.

If you'd like to make some sense of yesterday's pictures, I recommend opening that post in a separate window. Here are the captions.

1: In mid-November, on my second week on Epi, I took a little "business trip" around the island. Robinson (yellow shirt on my left), a local Agriculture Officer, Marco (green shirt on Robinson's left, one of the 4 area secretaries on Epi, and Michael (taking the picture), a Shefa livestock officer from Vila, were set to tour about ten villages on Epi describing a promoting the upcoming Livestock Day on Efate. Michael was trying to get villages to send small livestock to Port Vila to sell there. Well, I found out about the trip the morning they were set to leave and weaseled my onto the truck with them. We traveled for four days, sleeping in the villages and making stops along the way where Michael and Robinson would tout Livestock Day. After they gave their speech, they would introduce me and I would give my twenty minute talk-talk about why I'm on Epi and how I would like to work with them. By the time we had reached far off Ngala, we had our traveling sales pitch pretty worked out and I was rattling off Bislama the whole way.

One of the last villages we visited was Moriu, home to Laura, a volunteer starting her third year in Vanuatu. She's the white face to my right. Her host papa is standing on the right in the white shirt. The large thatched building is the village nakamal, were everyone was summoned for the meeting. There's one in every village and they serve as city hall, court house, all around meeting place, and during la-fetes, good places for the men to gather and butcher cows.

2: Looking out of the nakamal at Moriu, you can see there new tam-tam. A tam-tam is a tree carved into a statue/drum. Notice the slit down the middle. When it's time for a meeting, the locals hit the sides with a stick to summon everyone. Radio Vanuatu plays the sound of tam-tams before making announcements.

3: Marco inside the nakamal. Marco is one of the four area secretaries I work with. Since we were traveling through his area on Epi, he was in charge of us and arranged things with the villages. Marco lives in nearby Malvasi, so I see him regularly. I've gotten to rely on him for explanations about what the heck is happening around me.

4: Me and Michael, the visiting livestock officer, having breakfast in Nikaura. It's not morning in Epi unless there's boiled bananas.

5: The view from Nikaura. That's Ambrym in the far distance. The night before, the Ambrym volcano had been active, and you could see the red beacon from the shore.

6: Lopevi, a small island visible from Northen Epi. The story is that after the volcano became active again, the people of Lopevi came to Epi and are now in Ngala village. There's is reportedly one old man still living on the island who just didn't want to leave home and comes to Epi regularly in his canoe to grow food that can't be grown there. This is one of many non-verifiable stories that may or may not be true, but I actually believe this one if for no other reason than that the people of Laman island do make the two hour canoe ride to Epi regularly to tend to gardens they have on Epi and then row back with a canoe full of bananas.

7: Another tam-tam at another nakamal. The swirl in the forehead is probably representative of the round pig tusks that are one of the main symbols of vanuatu. The round tusk is present on the flag, the money, and on the labels of Tusker brand beer.

8: I'm following Michael, Marco, and Robinson. We took a truck from one village to where the road ended, then walked along this remarkable beach for about half a mile so we could get into a small speed boat at the end that took us across the bay to Ngala. All so that we could have yet another meeting about livestock and why on Earth I'm volunteering in Epi.

9: Michael is a kava fan and wanted me to take a picture of him pounding kava root before steeping, squeezing, and drinking the stuff. This is the main method for making kava on Epi, unlike Efate where they use a mince meat grinder, or on Tana where you chew it and then have a virgin boy squeeze it for you. A volunteer on Tana explained to me that since women are *ahem* unclean, they may not touch a man's food after cooking it and may not squeeze kava. Men who touch women are just as unclean so only virgin boys can squeeze the kava. Epi has no such rules as far as I can tell.

10: Papa Robinson and Mama Seesie's house. Yes, that's a motorcycle, but no, it doesn't work. Seesie and Robinson are my neighbors and essentially part of the family. Like my host family, they are part of the Seventh Day Adventist church and live on our little SDA third of the village.

11: Another view of Robinson's house. This is a slightly patriachal society, though not consciously so. People will instinctively tell you that this is Robinson's house and refer to Robinson's family, but if I were to call it Mama Seesie's house, no one would think twice about that.

That little shelter in the middle is where they keep and wash their dishes and the kitchen house is on the left.

12: Spot or Spotty, our dog whom Papa Daniel insists is lazy because he sometimes doesn't follow the family to the bush.

13: Robinson's house again. Papa Daniel built this house and as a testament to his craftsmanship notice the thatched overhand and, wonder of wonders, this house is L-shaped!

14: My house! My papa built this house with the help of one other man and it's a mansion. Look at that cement foundation and that natangura (thatch) roof.

15: Another view of my house. I can close up those windows in the forground, but not the ones in the back. Yes, there's a wooden door and it has a lock. The family just put the calico there for decoration I think.

16: This is the shelter by my grandma's kitchen where we sometimes gather for meals. Pumkins and snake beans grown on top. The building in the back on the right is grandma's (Apu's) kitchen.

17: That's my swim house where I take my twice daily bucket baths. Have you noticed yet that there's a separate building for everything? A family may have one or two main houses for sleeping and generally living, a swim house, a smol haos (toilet), a kitchen, and maybe a wash house or a tool shed. There are also little shelters about and benches since we spend most of our time outside anyway.

18: Apu blong mi (right) and Mama blong mi (left) are using split sticks to place hot stones on top of lap-lap leaves. Lap-lap leaves are like banana leaves and are used when you make, you guessed it, lap-lap, the traditional dish of Vanuatu. The mashed banana, manioc, taro, kumala, or yam is wrapped between two layers of leaves and those stones are going to cook it for several hours.

19: Anthony and me in Natakoma, my training village on Efate. I vaguely remember a time when I lived in a house with walls and ceiling like that.

20: My host family in Natakoma are inspecting my little globe. Papa Thomas is showing where you can find Vanuatu.

That's what I can offer for now. There will hopefully be more to come when I'm able.


Daniel

Returned from the Bush

Good Morning,

It's eight o'clock, Sunday morning, February 6, 2011. After about three months on the island of Epi, I've been summoned back to Port Villa for two weeks of additional training and other administrative bruhaha. There is intermittent internet access so I am going to try posting photos and responding to comments today.

I am doing well, though, as has been the case every time that I've come to the capital, plagued by a long list of things to do and not given enough time to do them. It's become apparent that many of those catchy slogans the Peace Corps slaps onto brochures and posters are quite true, especially the one saying it's "The toughest job you'll ever love". I'll be in touch and will try to post a lot of pictures before going back to my island.

Daniel

Training is Finished!

Sunday, November 7, 2010,

Our eight weeks of training is over and I am now a Peace Corps volunteer. Let's begin and the beginning. My group of 41 trainees left Los Angeles on September 10 and arrived in Port Villa, Vanuatu on September 12, having missed the 11^th when flying over the international dateline. After a warm (literally) welcome, we were shuffled off to a IDS camp in the nearby town of Pango on the edge of Port Villa. There, we lived barracks style for a week while attending the first of what would become many classes, workshops, and training sessions. That's also when my metabolism started to kick in to high gear, but more on that latter.

After a week at the IDS camp facilities, Group 23, as we're called, was sent to training villages in North Efate. The five villages were about as far from Port Villa as you can get while staying on the same island. They included the well established Paunangisu and Epau as well as the small and seemingly more distant Ekipe as well as Takara A and my village, the smaller, newer encampment of Takara B. Only 5 of our group of 41 were sent to Takara B and we had a great time of it. Under the tutelage of George, our language instructor from Ambae, and with the help of my host parents Thomas and Fatima, I was able to learn a good deal about the culture and custom of Vanuatu as well as pick up a significant amount of Bislama.

The stories we five have from Takara B could fill a few pages by themselves. Just a few worth mentioning include the time when we became surprise guests of honor at the opening of the new road-side market and the official renaming of the village to Natakoma Komuniti. After repeated suggestions from the villagers, we took a small boat over to the nearby island of Emau, where the residents of the Takaras hail from originally. Then there was the time Andrew, my Mama, Chief Sam, and I climbed nearby Quinn Hill overlooking the whole area so that we could view the remnants of the old US military installation on top. It was an excellent place to put a “bigfalla musket” to shoot at approaching ships, as we learned from the chief. Of course, Andrew and I were referred to by the kustom names we had received on our second week in the village. He is Caul Fal (New Man) while I'm Tai Wia (Good Brother).

In between lessons and on the weekends, we tried to learn as much as we could from the villagers. I think I have a handle of taro and yam growing and look forward to making my own garden at my new site. Cleaning clothes with a basin of soapy water, a board, and a stiff brush is a time consuming task that I'll just have to get used to. I've drank enough kava now to know I should avoid it and I think I have good handle on how it's made.

The kava bars in the village cut the root and grind it in a mince meet grinder before adding the water and squeezing it, while the folks on Tanna used a noticeably different approach. At about week 5, all the trainees were sent on host-volunteer visits on different islands where we could see how a current volunteer lived and worked. I was set to go to Tanna with one other business volunteer, but he was medically separated just before so it was just me with Arthur in Middle Bush, Tanna followed by a day with Marion in Lenekel, Tanna. In addition to kustom dancing until dawn, roasting coffee in a metal drum, collected and eating wild pumkin, chasing horses in a truck, bathing in a waterfall, inspecting water pumps, chewing on whole vanilla beans, and eating, eating, eating, I was treated to some homebrew kava, Tanna style. First, the adult men (far away from the women who are forbidden from participating) chew the peeled kava root for a long time and spit the softened mush onto banana leaves. Next you have to get a boy. On Tanna, the men are forbidden from squeezing coconut shavings or kava so a boy must do it for you. The watered, squeezed kava juice was enough to fill four small bowls. We didn't have actual coconut shells this time. That stuff really makes the evening cicadas seem like a racket.

Back in Natakoma, we prepared to go to our new sites and say our goodbyes to our host village. The last night in the village got more emotional than we were prepared for. The village mamas had prepared a big “lask kakae” feast for everyone. Speeches were made and gifts given and the slightly formal manner of the islands. My fellow trainees more or less “volunteered” me to make a little speech on our behalf and then the hand shakes, hugs, and crying began.

The next morning we were off to Port Villa where I am now, preparing to go to site. 39 of us will be heading out, having lost one more person who I am led to believe quit for here own reasons. Swearing in last Thursday, was a great even from what I've been told. I was there, sworn in, and am now a fully fledged volunteer, but I was so sick that I wasn't really concentrating much on the speeches and presentations. Bit of a shame to, as I was supposed to give the big Bislama speech on behalf of our class, but was unable to. I'm glad I got to attend. I'm fine now. It was just another weird bug in a long list of ailments I've had here. They come and go fast.

So, here's the big news. On Wednesday, I'm going to the island of Epi. I will be living in a thatched roof house in the village of Alek near Rovo Bay. My job is to work with a few counterparts in the Shefa Provincial council to conduct community surveys and assessments on the island as well as help build the business capacity of the people in the area as well as the council itself. Yes, it's a bit vague, but most of the positions are. I'm a frontier capitalist riding through the territories with a fistful of ideas, squaring off with any and all comers who want help.

For those wondering about creature comforts: I will be growing a garden, but buying localing grown food until that comes in. There is no electricity in my village, but there usually is in Lamon Bay, a one and a half hour walk North. There is a potable water tap close to my little house. My host parents, whom I believe are in their thirties live nearby. My “smol haos” is seperate and bucket showers will continue to be the norm. I bough a small gas stove for about 9,000 Vatu ($90) and will be cooking with gas when I don't want to collect firewood. Lastly, I guess I'll be eating a lot of the local peanuts and pumpkins.

More to Come.

- Daniel

Sorry, I can't get any more pictures up.

I think we find out what our site assignments will be on October 28. I'm hoping for Tanna as I've taken a liking to bush life.

On my first day in Takara B, I sat down with my host Papa and had a long chat in broken Bislama under his large mango tree. I learned more of the language and maybe more about Vanuatu in that one evening than I had during the week before. Twice a week I travel to Epau for technical training which just happens to be under another mango tree. That's not uncommon for Vanuatu so I've decided to use that concept for my web-log title.

Technical training is vague for business volunteers. Vanuatu is in a unique situation in that while it suffers from "poverty of opportunity" it also benefits from "subsitence oppulence". You can't starve on Vanuatu. Food, clothing, and shelter, are readily available and if you can't manage on your own, your extended family or village will take of you. If your a local with your own garden, a few animals, and access to the abundance of the sea and the bush, you don't need much cash just to live. If you do want or need some money, however, there's not much opportunity to make it. Money is needed to pay school fees to educate your children, to pay doctor bills at the clinic, and to buy fuel for your kerosene lamp or diesel generator if your well-to-do. There are also all sorts of nice consumer goods you can "pem" (buy) from Villa or your local store, but you can live without instant coffee and canned meat.

I think we are helping people with their business largely so they can afford adequate medical care and send their children to school. With that said, we business volunteers have been discussing a bit of a philosophical problem. Port Villa is experiencing a host of social problems that are facing Ni-Vanuatu for the first time. As young people come to Villa to make money and live the "flash life" they leave behind any community support and their own rural self-sufficiency. Some of them don't make it and fall in to poverty, prostitution, crime, or other problems.

We business volunteers are going to into rural communities and introducing efficiency, sometimes at the cost of self-sufficiency. It's sometimes hard to see why they even need us. We Americans have a had a few revelatory conversations with the Ni-Vanuatu and discovered that in rural Vanuatu, there isn't poverty as American's know it. Like I said, no one starves, no one freezes at night, and people get by. The surveys say this is the happiest place on Earth. They could benefit from some schools, inoculations, and knowledge about dengue and AIDS, but the case for the business volunteer is less concrete.

Okay, back to facts. I've started taking to local business people like the store ownere, the kava bar operator, and the bread maker. These businesses make your American Mom & Pop shop look advanced in some ways, but the Ni-Vanuatu I've met have the basics down. They have shown an understanding of basic accounting and margins, but don't seem to mind having a strained supply line or having to shut down for a few days because they just ran out of flour and haven't purchased any more from Villa yet. It's only been a few weeks though, so I am by no means an expert on Vanuatu enterprise.

My time is almost up. I've doing very well and adjusting to island life. Miraculously, we haven't lost any volunteers from my group yet, which was unexpected for a group our size. My fellow volunteers seem upbeat and happy and our biggest gripes are only that we can't get ice cream and sometimes creepy crawlies get into your room at night. We'll be fine. I'll stay in touch.

Lastly, the Ni-Vanuatu now call me Taewia. the emphasis is on "Thai", like Thailand, followed by "wee-ah". It means "good brother" in the language of Emau.

-- Daniel --

Training in Takara

My room.

The coconut trees at the edge of the yard at the Faratia household.

My daily commute to town takes me through the dry, flat grassland of the "American Airport." I live part way up the hill on the left.

Good Morning,

It is 9:30 in the morning and I am sitting in a French cafe by the bay watching the yacths sail through the bay by Port Villa. There's an Australian crusie ship here today so Villa town has s few red-lanyered tourists milling about. I have a short amount of internet time so excuse me if this is messy. Also, I'm probably going to stick to facts for now (where I am, what I do...). The gushing about how nice everything is will come later.

After a week at the IDS camp in Pango near Port Villa, the 41 Peace Corps Trainees of Group 23 were wisked away to five seperate villages in North Efate. I am staying in Takara B while the rest are in Takara A, Epau, Paunangisu, and Ekipe. There are five of us in Takara B which is the smallest of the villages. It is probably also the most remote. Last year, Efate island completed the Ring Road which runs all the way around the island. If Port Villa, the capital and urban center of the island is the start and end of the ring, Takara B is the middle. There is a sign in town indicating the middle of the ring and telling passers by that the project was funded by the US Millenium Challenge Account. For what it's worth, the locals here are well aware of which projects where funded by what countries.

I live in a farmhouse uphill from Takara B in what even the villagers call "the bush". I was confused at first as they would often ask if I was going back "antap". "Antap" (on top) is the Bislama word for not only the top of something like a hill or table, but also more generally refers to uphill, inland, and sometimes up.

My host parents are Thomas and Fatima Faratia. Papa Thomas is 65 while Fatima is somewhat younger. Sometimes Anthony (13) is around, but usually he stays with his sister on the nearby island of Emau, where he goes to school. The people of Takara A and B orginally come from Emau, a smaller island visible from the northern tip of Efate. Takara A is a well established community while Takara B probably has only 80 people and still has a transient look to it. With the exception of my Papa's house, the rest of the homes in Takara look like they where recently built with whatever metal sheeting and wood was available and aren't meant to last.

This is partly because Takara B is actually a rather new settlement. So new that is is not even getting a proper name until this Saturday when it will be rechristened as Natakoma Komuniti. There's going to be a celebration coinciding with the opening of the new road-side market this weekend.

Each morning I wake up under my mosquito netting sometime between 4:30 and 5:30. That's when the sun comes up and the birds go crazy anyway, so there is not much chance of sleeping late. My host parents are often up a little earlier. In the morning gray, I wander over the "smol haos" for my morning "swim" or bracing bucket bath. Gently chilled, I breakfast with the parents and whatever children are visiting for heading "daon" to "taon" for class at 7:30 or 8:00. At the bottom of the hill, past Uncle Simon's homestead is the "Amerikan Aepot", a flat expanse of grass land that Americans denuded of tress and buldozed during the second World War to build an airstrip. Simon's house is built on a flat slab on concrete left by the Americans.

After the "airport" which the volunteers have named "the Serengeti" is the town proper, starting with the village nakamal and a church where we have class. Bislama is going fairly well, which is mostly due to how easy the language is for English speakers. We take occasional trips to the other villages for technical training with our program groups. I'm with business.

My pictures loaded so I'm going to post this while I can. More to come soon.